Autocollapse Spaces in sidebar

[Marloes]

I regularly get overwhelmed by the number of open Spaces and views on the left in Fibery.
Therefore I prefer Spaces to have an automatic closing system when you open another Space.

But take note, only Spaces should close automatically. All folders and smart folders should remain open or closed as they were when the Spaces was closed. If sublevels also close when a Spaces closes, you would have to open to many levels before you get to the right view. That is not the intention. That will break the flow of getting to the right information fast.

I hope this makes sense.

@YvetteLans

[Matt_Blais]

I would want to be specify something like “No more than (two) Spaces open”, so when I open a third Space, the most recent one also stays open, but previously opened Spaces are closed.

I.e. “Maximum number of simultaneously open Spaces”

[YvetteLans]

Why 2 spaces open? As far as I know ‘close one when you open a new one’ is more or less ‘standard UX’ in menu views. Can image that my clients can’t understand it when two spaces are open Because the logic is then less obvious.

[Matt_Blais]

I often am bopping back and forth between a couple views in different Spaces.

[YvetteLans]

Yes I’m doing the same myself but UX wise I don’t know if it’s wise. Do you know an application that keeps only 2 parts open?

[mdubakov]

Such automatic things may confuse people. What if you want to keep 2-3 spaces open to quickly get back after some side task? People are different and here the desired behavior can be different as well for various people. Maybe some personal setting in future can be added though.

[YvetteLans]

Agree, although I do think my clients can get ‘lost’ in spaces quite easily. Because all views are vertical and not horizontal, and therefor the left tree is pretty huge.

Can imagine that auto collapse is not the best option. But what about a ‘collapse / expand’ option?

Same for hierarchical list views. Would be great to have that option there as well. Because currently I sometimes need to open all entities in the list to find what I’m looking for (because we use ‘grouby same database relation’ quite often (for projects/sub projects and tasks/subtasks’) and then it’s auto collapsed)

The workspace that we are building for our customers is very big. A CRM space, PKM space, Project space, Automation & template space, Content Hub space, Product Development space, Dashboard space, Inbox space and a few smaller things.

Because we build the whole workspace for them, they are not that handy with Fibery.

So currently we have a lot of views to show all information we need. And with smart folders that tree can be very long. Which makes the left menu tree pretty overwhelming for users.

So It would be nice to somehow:

• Find a solution to have less views because the views itself are more flexible and functional (the new table / group options will be a life saver !)
• Give the user the possibility to collapse / expand spaces and information in hierarchical views
• Structure smart folders even more so they are not always so big (for example: a folder in a smart folder → I have multiple use cases where that’s really handy).
• Find a solution to have less views in the tree. Horizontal views may be a good one. I really like that in report views and databases.

This is an old video of ClickUp which I made. To show how ‘clean’ the tree can look when horizontal views are added.

I do think Fibery’s UI is way better than ClickUp. And that Fibery is overall way better than ClickUp. But horizontal views like ClickUp can help the users a lot I think because the left menu will be a lot smaller and more well-organised.

[Matt_Blais]

Somewhere (long ago) I think I requested to have a button to collapse all Spaces in the Left Menu.
Perhaps that is a good solution?

[JoelH]

@mdubakov

Such automatic things may confuse people. What if you want to keep 2-3 spaces open to quickly get back after some side task? People are different and here the desired behavior can be different as well for various people. Maybe some personal setting in future can be added though.

I agree with this. I also think I don’t want full automatic auto-collapsing views. Sometimes I want to keep two spaces / locations open.

Maybe an option to “sticky” the Space to stay expanded, that can be assisted with a keyboard shortcut?

Like alt+click to toggle “stickyness” (and an indication of “stickyness” on the Space icon). Then I could control how many Spaces I want to keep open, and change it during a session or whenever I feel like it.

Like, the Spaces that I have “stickied”, they retain their expanded state even if I toggle other Spaces (and I can “unsticky” them, if I want), while all “non-sticky” Spaces that are expanded, gets auto-collapse if I expand another Space? Or some variation of that.

@YvetteLans

Find a solution to have less views because the views itself are more flexible and functional (the new table / group options will be a life saver !)

@YvetteLans

Find a solution to have less views in the tree. Horizontal views may be a good one. I really like that in report views and databases.

Agree there is probably better long-term solutions out there. But currently all important navigation (views/docs) are available in the sidebar, it feels like fundamentally changing to a “horizontal model” would be quite a thing.

On the flip side of the problem (it’s real) of navigating a large left sidebar, I think it’s kind of nice and simple, to know that I have all the important navigation entry points available in the sidebar, today.

But, I also think that as long as the main “topic” of a view is unchanged (maybe not enforced, but as a best practice), some more horizontal views (like tabbed interfaces) like they have in Notion and Clickup, or just quick filters, to avoid extra some views (like Jira) would be good.

@Matt_Blais

Somewhere (long ago) I think I requested to have a button to collapse all the Spaces in the Left Menu.
Perhaps that is a good solution?

I think is a good idea. I have often wanted that. If combined with a feature like sticky mode for Spaces, I would expect to collapse the sticky Spaces, but not remove the “stickyness” (if I open them again).

In any case, today my left sidebar gets cluttered like real quick and, then it’s “welcome to scroll hell”. More so if i have nested documents (like wiki pages). At the same time, nested wiki in left sidebar is kind of nice. I’m so conflicted

[YvetteLans]

@JoelH

I’m so conflicted

Same Because I also do agree with you!

I don’t want all horizontal views. But it would be great if we can somehow create a lot of views without the need to put them in the left tree. Like we already have within a linked database in an entity.

So for example then I can switch between ‘show me a list, board, table, etc.’

That will solve a lot. And personally I think it’s more user friendly to then show those views on tabs / horizontal views because you can switch more easily. Like we already have in databases.

Or in report views

So…

• Everything that is currently on the left, stays on the left (like smart folders, documents, etc. → because that works great!)
• But then with the possibility to create different views and show them on the main screen.

Really hard to explain what’s in my head But I think it would solve a lot!

[YvetteLans]

Just found out that ClickUp’s newest design pretty sums up what I meant in the above post

[Illusory]

I do agree, the side panel can get a little hectic and take a moment to find the app and views within, especially when many are expanded.

Perhaps a simpler solution would be adding a “Filter” input field above the “Favorites” section that allows you to “Filter” (fuzzy search)" for Apps and Views in the sidebar based on the param value?

Example: To quickly find our “Team Projects” internal Fibery app, we could type in the “Filter” input field “Team” and any app name NOT containing “Team” would display?

Alternatively, any app name, view title, form title or smart/standard folder NOT containing the word “Team” will be hidden.

Adding keyboard shortcut for this would be great as well (e.g. Command + Shift + F) to immediately input your cursor into the “Filter” sidebar nav field.

I know this does not address the want for “auto-collapsing”, but at least may address “getting lost in spaces”.

Thoughts?

[ccollins]

There is a huge need for the autocollapse of spaces. I 100% support this.

After I onboard new users to our workspace, I come back over the next couple weeks to see how they are using the system, what questions they have, etc. I have watched so many people get lost within the left sidebar and not understand what they are doing wrong. And I’ve designed the workspace to be as minimal and straightforward as possible.

I honestly wish I could give these people a left sidebar without any sub-items under the the spaces. No folders, no views. You click on the space name, it opens that space’s home dashboard and you navigate to everything from there. A clean, simple sidebar.

But I’ll settle for an autocollapse option under preferences. Then, I could turn it on when onboarding new users who I know will need it. In all honesty, I’d probably use it too - but it should be a preference.

Personal note: My industry (Construction) isn’t Fibery’s focus, but there are tech-challenged people everywhere. Often in executive level roles who have sway over if something like Fibery can expand from just a small team utilizing it to becoming a workspace for the entire organization. I think Fibery underestimates how easily intimidated by messy tech these types of people are. To these people, I am consistently defending its potential as an incredible tool to ‘augment organizational intelligence’ while they are nitpicking small and confusing navigation and interface issues

[Matt_Blais]

@ccollins

small and confusing navigation and interface issues

Which are actually NOT small, because they have such an outsized impact on user experience

My #1 criticism of Fibery team is that they have chosen not to prioritize having an “A+ first-class user experience”. Which is completely understandable, as it is just a difference in opinion about which things are most important, and why.

Apple products are so very popular partly because they have prioritized UX. I do hope Fibery achieves that some day, too.

[njyo]

Hi all, late to this convo, mostly because of a similar need of taming the massive #left-menu:

However, I am with @mdubakov that some of that kind of automagical behaviour can be very confusing to users. Instead, I would suggest the following refinements:

1. Highlight the background of the space the current view is in. The breadcrumbs on the top of a view are a huge improvement, but because I’m not visibly anchored on the left, it still often becomes a hunting exercise to even just find a sibling view. Or, in the above case after opening a link, I cannot even get to a parent view (well, because it’s a database entity), but with a highlight I can quickly find a view…
2. Add some visual margin above spaces (compare with Slack’s left menu) as that will help grouping the space trees visually
3. Let users mark spaces as auto-collapse on/off (default setting TBD). Again, taking a clue from Slack’s “Show all” vs. “Show unread only” approach. Like a house, where some doors I will keep open because I keep moving between the rooms, others I just go in, get my thing done and leave and that door is usually closed.
4. Keep the Spaces consistent (I understand that Users is historically different, but now it’s just confusing)
5. Allow admins make a default space sorting. As you can see in my screenshot I’ve done some prefixing and colour coding that should allow sorting this easier. But for new users I do not know, what order they see it. I’d want to at least define a default order for people, where they can then personalise from. Or, maybe admins simply define a default order for all users and all users can do is hide spaces away… not sure if they would need to re-arrange if they can hide stuff less crucial for them and can choose what auto-collapses.

I know these are a number of improvements beyond just auto-collapse. But I think there’s a few of them needed to tackle the growing left menu.
If needed, I’m happy to create multiple feature requests, lemme know.

Thanks!

[Chr1sG]

@njyo

Allow admins make a default space sorting. As you can see in my screenshot I’ve done some prefixing and colour coding that should allow sorting this easier.

Sidebar Space (aka App) sort order

Here’s a tip if you (as an Admin) want to ‘push’ the left menu ordering you have to any other users: Create a button automation on the User db, and use the following script: const fibery = context.getService('fibery'); for (const entity of args.currentEntities) { const userToCopy = await fibery.getEntityById(entity.type, args.currentUser['Id'], ['fibery/menu-rank']); await fibery.updateEntity(entity.type, entity.id, { 'fibery/menu-rank': userToCopy['fibery/menu-rank'] }); } Then sele…

[njyo]

Thanks a lot, @Chr1sG, worked like a charm!